18 semantic map on the blackboard that graphically displays information within
categories related to a central concept and stimulates meaningful words associations. The teacher begins the process by introducing the major theme,
a major theme, a major concept, or a major issue from the article by writing in the middle of the blackboard.
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2. Teacher direct comprehension task
Here the teacher makes sure that the students know what they are going to do. Are they going to answer questions, fill in a chart, complete a message pad or
try to retell what they saw? This is where the teachers explains and direct the students’ purpose for reading.
3. Students read for task
The students than read a text to perform the task the teacher has set. Ward has many ways to present a reading selection, they are:
a. Have the students read the entire selection by themselves.
b. Read the entire selection if it is not too long to the students and then do a
paragraph-by-paragraph analysis. Cautions the students to keep their eyes moving, even there is a vocabulary item or grammatical pattern they do
not understand. Remind them that the teacher will return to the paragraph later.
c. Read the selection paragraph by paragraph. If the passage is, for example,
six paragraphs long, the teacher may wish to read the first three paragraphs while the class follows along, and then proceed with detailed examination
of what the teacher has read; then repeat the procedure for the last three paragraphs.
d. Try a sandwich approach. Read the introduction and conclusion and then
ask the students to guess what they are going to read. This could also be used as a motivating technique. Alternatively, you might read the body of
the selection and have students guesses an introduction and a conclusion.
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4. Teacher direct feedback
Fredricka L. Stoller, Making the Most of a Newsmagazine Passages for Reading Skills Development,
Forum. Vol. 32, no. 1, January, 1994, p. 3
18
James Ward, “Techniques for Teaching Reading”, Forum. Vol. XVIII, No.2, April, 1980, p.3
19 When the students have performed the task the teacher will help students to
see if they have completed the task successfully and will find out how well they have done. This may follow a stage in which students check their
answers with each other first.
Teacher direct text related task
In this stage, the teacher organizes some kind of follow up task related to the text. If the students have answer questions about a letter, the text related task
might be to answer that letter. The main thing to remember is that a successful follow up to a reading exercise involves integrating the language
skills.
Reading Comprehension
The Nature of Reading and Comprehension
We cannot release reading from our daily activities. Starting from morning, we read newspapers while having breakfast, read a letter from a friend, read science
books, scan our favorite TV programmed and read stories to children when they go to bed at night. It means that people have things to do with reading in every place where
they exist.
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Although for many people reading texts means reading a books, people read many different types of texts everyday, such as labels on cereal boxes, medicine
containers, clothes, instructions street sign, directions for operating a VCR, advertisements on TV, in magazines, on billboards, and notes grocery lists,
messages, to name only a few.
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For Mei-Yun, readers can communicate with the writers by text. Among the readers and the writers communication may be carried on by means of a few words,
one sentence, thousand of words until thousand of sentences.
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According to Peter Stevens, ‘reading is a process of making out the meaning of written language’.
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19
Fredricka L. Stoller, Making the Most of a Newsmagazine Passages…, p. 2 Jo Ann AebersoldMary Lee Field, From Reader to Reading Teacher, USA:Cambridge
University Press, 1997, p.10 Yue Mei-Yun, Cohesion and the Teaching of EFL Reading, Forum No.1 January 1993. p.16
20 Thorndike as cited by A. Harris Larry said that reading is an active process
related to problem solving. Reading is a form of communication, information an ideas, which exchanged between the writer and reader in the act of communicating.
The writer expresses his thought or ideas on paper with language skill and style he has developed.
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Reading Process is a dynamic activity, requiring active, meaningful communication between the author and the reader. The interaction should result in
meaning. Reading is a process to establish a representation of meaning, which involved more than identifying the words on page. But what must be achieved is an
understanding of the whole sequences of sentences.
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Reading cannot be separated from comprehension, one can read and scan the headline quickly, but he cannot analyze and conclude what he read. It indicates that he
has no comprehension skill, because comprehension is not only recognizing the words and decoding the words symbols, but also understand its meaning. However, reading
comprehension is complex. Some factors are involved and interrelated to each other. Therefore, reading comprehension needs integrated skills.
For Grellet, understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible. A competent reader will quickly reject
the irrelevant information and find what he is looking for. It is not enough to understand the gist of the text; more comprehension that is detailed is necessary.
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The ability to comprehend is affected by the material being read and by the reader. Four factors affecting the readers’ comprehension are:
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a. The knowledge the reader brings to the subjects affects that reader’s
comprehension. This prior knowledge includes what the reader has experienced, what he has read about the subject and what special vocabulary he knows about a
particular subject.
Peter Streven, New Orientation in The Teaching of English, London: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 109
A. Harris Larry Smith Carl B, Reading Instruction, New York: Richard C. Owen Publisher, 1976, p. 10
Kustaryo Sukirah, Reading Technique for College Students, Jakarta: P2LPTK Dirjen Dikti Depdikbud, 1988, p.2
Francoise Grellet, Developing Reading Skills, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 3
Eldon Ekwall and James L. Shaker, Teaching Reading in the Elementary School, Colombus: Bell and Howell Company, 1985, p.207-208
21 b.
A reader’s ability to comprehend depends on his or her interest in the subject. The more interest a reader has in particular subject, the more likely he or she is to have
already read or talked to someone about it. c.
A purpose for reading contributes to the reader’s ability of comprehension. Purpose also ties in with knowledge and interest in the subject.
d. The ability to decode words rapidly affects comprehension. If a reader must figure
out to pronounce a new word in every line or two, then she becomes so involved with a task that she has little mental energy for comprehending what is actually
written. From the theories above the writer can conclude that reading is a kind of
activities to understand the passage. It is not only how to get the meaning of each words or sentences, but the important one is how the reader could conclude the
writer’s ideas. Understanding is central to the process of reading and must be the focus of teaching. Reading texts also provide opportunities to study language:
vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and the way to construct the sentences, paragraphs and texts.
2. Kinds of Reading
